Hideout by Jack Heath (iphone ebook reader txt) 📕

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Fred says. ‘He’s done nothing but lie since he got here.’ He and Donnie lift me up, feeding me headfirst into the chute.

It’s barely wider than my shoulders and made of slippery steel with a cheap shimmer. Just enough light to see what lies ahead.

I cut my own hair, so I’ve seen electric clippers up close: two serrated blades, one lying flat on top of the other. The bottom one slides back and forth while the top one doesn’t, opening dozens of little gaps and then shutting them over and over, slicing the hairs in two. The inside of the grinder is like that writ large. Enormous jagged blades whirl in the shadows, row after row of them. Like huge teeth, designed to shred me for easy digestion by the finer gears below. The square chute amplifies the racket, funnelling it into my brain.

I brace my arms against the walls, trying to stay clear of the sharp edges further down. Fred and Donnie push me in. It must be hard work. This disposal method is designed for the dead, who don’t struggle.

‘Druznetski is lying!’ I shout. ‘Think about it! How would he even know what I look like?’

Four strong hands are holding my torso and legs. I don’t know whose is whose, but I feel two of them hesitate.

‘I sent him a photo,’ Fred says to someone. ‘Snapped it while Lux—Blake—was asleep. I felt bad at the time for invading his privacy. Now I’m glad I did.’

I’ve been sleeping so little and so lightly that I’m amazed Fred pulled this off.

The hesitant hands—they must have been Donnie’s—become firm once more, pushing me deeper into the grinder. The swirling blades get closer. The noise is stabbing me in the eardrums. The wind blasts my hair. My hands are slippery against the walls. I can’t hold on.

At least my head will go in first. There will only be a moment of pain before I’m pulped.

‘He will have called for backup,’ Donnie says.

‘Yeah.’ Fred sounds disappointed. ‘We have to shut this place down and move on.’

Shut this place down. He’s talking about killing the prisoners. Thistle will go through the grinder, right after me. I can’t let that happen. But I don’t know how to stop it.

Hands crush my calf muscles, thrusting me deeper into the chute. The blades are deafening, only inches away now.

‘I know who killed Samson!’ I scream.

I don’t. I’m not sure where the words come from. But in my desperation to save Thistle, it’s like I’m slamming against the walls of my own brain, and a half-formed idea is shaken loose.

One of the Guards killed Samson. And the other four will want to know who.

I keep yelling the same sentence over and over. ‘I know who killed Samson! I know who killed Samson!’

Someone loosens their grip on my leg again. But this makes one of my hands slip off the wall. My arm disappears into the spinning blades. Hot blood splashes my eyes. There’s a split second of agony—

And I snatch my arm back out again, just in time. I can’t see it, but I can still move all my fingers.

I’m getting dizzy. My blood pressure is dropping.

An argument is happening outside the grinder. I can only hear bits and pieces of it, echoing down the chute.

‘… thought Samson committed suicide?’

‘How would he know?’

‘Maybe he did it.’

‘… doesn’t make sense …’

Then Zara says the words that save my life: ‘You know, I saw him eating a human foot the other day.’

‘Eating?’ someone else says incredulously.

‘Yeah.’ I can practically hear Zara shrugging. ‘It just doesn’t seem like something an FBI agent would do.’

Finally convinced, Donnie drags me back out of the grinder. Maybe he was just sick of holding onto my legs. I fall to the concrete floor with a wet splat. I try to protect my head with my arm, but I miss somehow and my skull hits the floor. The world starts to spin and fade.

Donnie looms over me, boots ready to kick. ‘Who killed Samson?’ he snaps.

I’m too nauseated to respond. His gaze shifts to my arm, and his expression changes.

I look down. I can still feel my fingers—but they’re not there. There’s just a bloody stump where my elbow used to be.

‘Oh,’ someone says.

Then I’m gone.

I’m on a bed/the ground/a table. The sun/moon/kitchen lights burn my eyes. Chills ripple across my flesh. I’m cold/ hot. My arm is here/gone.

Pressure. A tightening/loosening around my bicep. Someone/something is squeezing it like a frosting tube.

A demon/angel looms over me.

‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ he/she whispers/ shouts.

My lips move/are frozen. Doesn’t matter. The creature isn’t talking to me.

‘Remember when Donnie cut that guy’s foot off?’ another voice says. ‘I helped Samson keep him alive.’

‘For about two weeks, sure. Then he died of infection.’

‘Two weeks is plenty. It won’t take long to find out what Lux knows.’

‘He’s not Lux.’

‘You sure about that?’

I try to look at my arm, but my head doesn’t turn. The world spins instead. Nausea floods up my throat like wasps.

‘What if he’s not a cop?’

‘He is.’

‘But what if he’s not? We can’t just let him die. Not if he hasn’t done anything wrong.’

‘Everyone’s done something wrong. No one’s innocent.’

My head finally turns. I’m on the kitchen bench. The room is full of people. Samson is here, watching me, his mouth a straight line. The real Lux is right behind him. The Scammer is here, too, and Gerald, and Charlie Warner, and the old FBI director. They’re all waiting for me.

The voices are starting to fade. The lights in my eyes don’t seem so bright now. I can’t feel my